"Which means we should be able to contain the problem here," she said with an optimistic tone she had not used since jumping out of the airplane.
Gant stared at her and agreed, but in a tone that chased away her optimism: "Yes, easy to contain the problem here. I think that was the idea."
The squeak and rumble of tire treads interrupted their conversation; the deep grumble of a powerful engine; the shouts and chatter of people.
Whoever had come to the island, they and their machines had reached the clinic.
* * *
The Pacific Ocean rolled to the island in a gentle fashion, waves turning to whitecaps turning to breakers and hitting the vast stretch of beach where the Archangel team had rallied before proceeding inland.
Specialist Jupiter Wells returned to that spot as per orders. He moved cautiously, sweeping the scene with his rifle and night vision, but also constantly wiping at his shoulders, which caused his movement to lose some of its military precision. The wiping came as the result of walking through a massive spider web strung between two trees. The web belonged to something with a big yellow body and eight nasty legs.
Jupiter Wells hated spiders.
Despite his imagination constructing phantom sensations of tiny arachnid legs stroking the back of his neck, he retrieved the large plastic tube that had parachuted to Earth with him from its hiding place among a rocky outcropping just off the beach.
It occurred to him that he should worry less about spiders and more about the newcomers who had arrived on the island. During his trip to the landing zone, he had heard the sound of vehicles and men moving along the island roads in a pattern that suggested two waves: one from the airstrip and the other from the docks on the west side of the island.
Of course, he could not be sure. The chief had told him to get to the satellite gear and file a report. Discovering the nature of the men and their vehicles would come later.
The rocks provided cover, yet he still felt exposed. Maybe it was the spray from the breaking waves that rained down every ten seconds. Perhaps that feeling came from the darkness of the Pacific: beyond the whitecaps he saw nothing but black, yet he felt as if he were being watched. Most likely his nervousness came from what he had confronted around the bungalow and how close those things had come to tearing him apart.
Or that damn spider. Spiders give me the creeps.
So he worked quickly, unfolding the small wire and mesh dish, plugging cords first into a power pack and then into a receiver/transmitter. He then cautiously slid the dish out from between the rocks and onto a stretch of beach. Next he donned a headset and worked a handheld digital device.
Instead of transmitting by voice, the unit burst a series of tones quiet in Wells's ear but designed to be heard more than one thousand miles away on Wake Island, all courtesy of a satellite orbiting Mother Earth.
Once he finished the first series of transmissions, he waited for a reply.
And waited.
The soldier repeated the series of tones and waited once more. When he again failed to receive a response, he switched his gear to a test mode. There should not be any problems connecting to the satellite but …
He ran through a series of test transmissions designed to bounce back to his transmitter/receiver from the satellite. He received nothing.
Wells's mind went over the potential problems.
The satellite might be out of position. Not the first time that shit has happened. The gear could also be fucked up, or else the signal is being blocked.
As per his training, he worked the problem, first going through a checklist of actions to determine system integrity. He considered what could go wrong, starting with loose wires, incorrect settings, contaminated circuitry, and even sunspots.
He finally heard a sound, but not from his equipment. The sound came from behind, moving through the jungle toward the beach. After a moment of listening, he identified that sound as a small vehicle of some kind, maybe a quad or small buggy.
The perfect type of vehicle for searching the beach.
It seemed to Jupiter Wells that the new arrivals on Tioga Island were coming in his direction.
8
Lieutenant Colonel Liz Thunder sat in a plastic chair at a round table in the center of a small cafeteria, finishing a cheeseburger chased by a coffee. She shared the place with about a dozen other persons, all at the Darwin facility for a variety of purposes. Of course, it was now her job to oversee all of those people and all of those purposes, but that goal still seemed well out of reach.
The place was big, true, and on any given day two hundred to three hundred men and women served within the confines of those twin pylons submerged in the California desert like upside-down eight-story buildings.
However, it was not the size of the place or the number of persons dwelling there that kept her from feeling at home with her new assignment. Instead, it was the nature of the place itself. Yes, several hundred people worked there, some just one level apart or around a corner or a few dozen feet across one of the few tunnels that connected the subterranean branches of the Darwin Research Facility. Physically, they were a tight-knit group.
In reality, however, the various departments might as well be separated by entire continents. The further one traveled into the depths of Darwin, the more secretive things became.
The cafeteria sat on the surface level, which also included a large reception area, a media center, conference rooms, and a small exercise gym. Tinted glass windows afforded a view of the Fort Irwin grounds or, rather, the isolated patch of desert that served as Darwin's part of the base. Not much to see out those windows other than a rocky horizon overlooking miles of flat, arid land. A few smaller buildings that served maintenance or security purposes surrounded the primary structure, and the entire complex was, in turn, surrounded by a big nasty fence, of course.
A second floor — known as Surface 2—housed communications facilities, photography labs, and even a rooftop greenhouse used for low-level experiments, although she worried that too much of that research involved growing plants with narcotic properties.
These two upper floors and the surrounding external buildings formed a sort of cap above Pylon A and Pylon B as those two parallel structures descended into madness below.
Reference libraries and supercomputers, biology labs and medical facilities occupied areas on sublevels one, two, and three. If your clearances worked, you could descend further and find microbiology research, a Biological Warfare Theories and Studies Center, a limited but still-frightening chemical warfare test range, chambers dedicated to propulsion and aeronautics studies, and a theoretical physics department that, thanks to the events at Red Rock three months before in Pennsylvania, gave Liz the creeps.
But the fun stuff really started on sublevel six, home to the containment facilities. She saw that place as something akin to a zoo combined with a prison for the criminally insane. Indeed the feral, cannibalistic children found, captured, and removed from Red Rock were among the more sedate residents in those high-tech cells.
Sublevel seven was a larger, older area that included some big, tall-ceiling rooms used by Archangel for tactical training as well as oversized storage facilities, one of which currently housed the extraterrestrial craft Major Gant and his team had pulled from the Everglades the previous autumn.
At the very bottom of it all was sublevel eight, which, like the surface levels, connected the two underground Pylons. This was an older, larger section with stone walls carved out of caverns and big rooms that felt more like caves. While dumping areas for toxic waste and all manner of vile byproducts from the floors above made this deepest of levels a place rarely visited, there was one room down there that demanded attention.
They called it the Pit. Liz had visited it only twice since arriving on station. And it was home to one last containment cell, this one a lot bigger and a lot more specialized.
She shuddered just thinking about It. But before thoughts of Darwin's most unu
sual resident could take hold of her imagination, Corporal Sammy Sanchez approached her table, carrying a sheet of paper. The feral children of Dr. Ronald Briggs were not the only occupants of Red Rock that had switched their address to Darwin.
Sanchez had helped Liz unravel the secrets at that dungeon in Pennsylvania and then confront a rogue general. Of course, Sanchez had also shot his previous commanding officer in the back, but that had come in the line of duty.
In any case, the young Hispanic man demonstrated courage and intelligence. She hoped to swing him a promotion in rank to match his new, expanded duties as her assistant at Darwin. Certainly, he was officer material and he had earned as much. But that would have to wait until she became more established in her job.
"Excuse me, Colonel."
She motioned to the empty chair across from her and popped the last morsel of bun and burger into her mouth.
The corporal wore the army's grey, universal camouflage pattern BDUs. She had her own set hanging in a closet somewhere; she preferred a dress uniform and had recently traded in her olive drab one for the new blue.
"Look at us in our fancy clothes," she said. "We're really moving up in the world."
"Ma'am?"
Liz realized she had spoken her thought aloud.
I really have to learn to stop doing that.
"Nothing. What did you find out?"
He looked left and then glanced right, well aware that everyone in the cafeteria, from the old lady in the lab coat to the tall thin soldier with his wrist handcuffed to a suitcase, held high-level clearance, but not all clearances are created equal.
Reacting to his discomfort, she leaned forward and whispered, "It's okay, Sammy. You were looking into shipping manifests, not the Manhattan Project."
"Okay, ah, Colonel. I found about two dozen manifests for ships leaving the United States and listing Tioga Island as one of their destinations. Most of the stuff I found were things like aviation fuel, foodstuffs, furniture, and building supplies. But one shipment really stood out."
Her eyes perked up, the result of either the calorie explosion from the burger, the caffeine from the coffee, or the tone of Sanchez's voice, which suggested he had found a valuable nugget of information.
"Go ahead. I'm listening."
"Mining equipment."
Liz failed to see the big reveal.
He explained, "It's a tiny little isle, right? The only thing there other than palm trees and sand is a volcano. It doesn't make any sense to do mining in a volcano."
Liz waited for a moment, allowing him three whole seconds to enjoy what he apparently saw as an important clue.
Then she said, "Except for sulfur miners. They've heard of it, although they probably wish they hadn't."
"Sulfur miners?" The expression of self-satisfaction disappeared.
"Yep, the poor bastards go right into a volcano and pull the stuff out. That is, if the fumes or the heat don't kill them. Their mortality rate can be a little high. I hear the ones in Java work for about ten bucks a day. Isn't the third world great?"
"Oh. I didn't, well, I mean, I didn't know that. Sorry to bother you."
"Wait a sec, Sammy." She touched his shoulder and stopped him from leaving. "Did you track down the company that shipped the mining equipment?"
"I did. It was about a year ago when they sent the stuff. Some land movers, trucks, drilling equipment, and lots of explosives. The stuff was bought by a company who they thought managed the island."
"And who owns the island?"
"As far as I can tell, a whole bunch of management companies that all point to a group of Hollywood big shots. But there are a lot of hurdles, middlemen, and lawyers to jump before we get a clue as to who actually is in charge."
"Nice," Thunder said, and took the piece of paper from his hand. It was a faxed copy of the shipping manifest for the mining equipment. Her eyes scanned the lines but really paid no attention to the words on the page. "A private little getaway for the rich and the power brokers. And what do we get, Corporal? Just another high-tech dungeon. You ever wonder if you and I are in the wrong line of work?"
He looked at her with an expression that was one part blank and one part nervous.
"It's okay," she said. "I meant to say that aloud."
"Yes, Colonel. I'll keep looking. But what happens now?"
She let the paper drop to the tabletop and leaned back in the molded plastic chair that eerily reminded her of the ones she had sat in decades ago in elementary school.
"Campion is in theater now and PACOM is starting to cough up some assets. Major Gant should make contact soon. What happens next will be based entirely on what he has found on that island."
9
Major Gant motioned for Dr. Stacy to follow him away from the morgue drawers and out of the back room of the clinic. The sound of activity grew louder and more distinct as the noise carried in through the open front doors, across the lobby, and down the hall.
Thom heard the rumble of idling engines, including something that sounded big — a diesel engine, perhaps. He heard shouts as well, and although he could not make out specific words, he believed he heard English, albeit a rather choppy version, stilted and coarse.
Then he made out the sound of boots entering the building.
He directed Dr. Stacy into an examination room that included a dental chair probably used less for root canals and cavity fillings and more for teeth whitening and cosmetic dentistry. Regardless, the bulky chair provided something for Stacy to hide behind while Gant left the door half open and stood behind it, his gun at the ready.
The boots approached at a fast walk. Along with the footsteps he heard a variety of other sounds, including jingles, crunches, and the scrape of wood and metal against fabric, which he identified as slung guns.
As usual, his mind painted a picture of the newcomers before his eyes actually saw anything. He guessed them to be well organized, which made him believe they were prepared for whatever had happened here on the island. Certainly the plane that had saved the day was part of their group. They were armed, they brought heavy equipment, and they did not come to the clinic as part of some random search.
They came here for the same reason we did.
All of Gant's suspicions appeared confirmed when he saw who entered the building: a line of people wearing white level-A hazmat suits topped with wide masks that seemed to have a lot in common with NASA space suits.
He watched them from his position behind the half-open examination room door but had to pull back as they came down the hall en route to the back room. He saw no insignia of rank or nationality on their suits but he did see AKM assault rifles dangling from harnesses.
They spoke in English but, as he had suspected, they did not speak it very well.
"Go. Back there. Go see."
"Nothing up front."
"Short time. Hurry."
A tactical light cut in to the examination room as one of the men in the bulky hazmat suits stuck his rifle in. Gant hovered inches away on his side of the door and watched the globe of illumination sweep the walls and then settle on the examination chair. It held for a moment and then withdrew.
Gant heard a burst of static and then a female voice spoke into a radio but unlike her comrades, did so with near-perfect English.
"No bodies in the clinic but there are signs of a struggle. This was ground zero. Possible bio contamination in the back room that is most likely from subject zero."
"Understood," came a reply over her radio that echoed out from the back room. "Search for any files or logs that might have any notes regarding subject zero. Then set accelerants to ensure total cleansing of that building. After that focus on specimen collection. We have reason to believe there is an outside variable at play here, so we will proceed with the worst-case scenario time factors."
Gant heard "outside variable" and wondered if that referred to him.
Another light shone into the room, but this time not from the door. A flashli
ght beam came in through a small window set in the outside wall. Whoever carried that flashlight — no doubt one of the hazmat-wearing soldiers — continued on without paying any attention to the inside of the building and what his light might have discovered if he had been more thorough.
Gant moved over to and around the dental chair. His sudden appearance caused Stacy to nearly jump out of the tight ball she had curled into.
"We have to move," he whispered. "Out that window," and he pointed.
Two men shuffled past the open door, moving from the back room to the front lobby. If not for the limited vision of their hazmat suits they might have seen Gant and Stacy. Instead, they moved on at a pace that suggested to the major that they were, indeed, on a tight time frame and working a series of carefully planned actions. This was yet another sign these people were not merely reacting to the crisis on Tioga, but had precipitated it.
"Who are they?" she asked. "Maybe they can help. We should talk to them."
"I admire your optimism, but you will have to lose the naivety if you are going to survive this job."
He unlatched the window as quietly as possible and slid it open. Thom helped her out first and then followed outside, onto a stretch of well-maintained lawn between the clinic and the forest.
A halo of light glowed from the front of the building, and the sound of the vehicles grew even louder.
Gant wanted very much to get a good look at what lurked over there, but he felt it important to extricate themselves from the area with the idea of calling for outside help, something he did not want to admit to Dr. Stacy after admonishing her for a similar suggestion not too long ago. Nonetheless, his instincts told him that he was in the middle of something big, and he felt that the best way to understand what was happening was to put distance between them and the people wearing the hazmat suits.
Of course, they are probably wearing those suits for a reason and I took mine off a while ago.
Regardless, he was functioning just fine. At least for the time being. He would worry about contamination later, or if he manifest symptoms of any kind. In the meantime, they moved through the forest in an attempt to disappear into the dark. It soon became apparent that remaining hidden would be a lot more difficult than it had been before the strangers had come.
The Cannibal Virus Page 8